Fewer Americans are avoiding small gatherings as pandemic wears on, poll finds

More Americans are saying that they aren’t avoiding small gatherings of people during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll.

Seventy-four percent of Americans said they’ve avoided small gatherings in the past week, according to a Gallup poll conducted between April 27 to May 3. The number is down 10 percentage points from late March in another Gallup survey.

More people also said they haven’t considered avoiding small gatherings, from 9% in late March to 17%, according to the poll.

The poll results also varied by political affiliation.

While in March, people of all political parties were likely to say they were avoiding small gatherings, that figure decreased among Republicans and independents during April. Among Republicans, avoidance dropped from 76% to 60% from late March to late April.

The number of independents who said they were avoiding small gatherings decreased from 84% to 74% during the same time span, according to Gallup. For Democrats, the number slightly dipped from 90% in late March to 86% in late April.

The decrease in avoiding small gatherings coincides with several states beginning to reopen their economies with restrictions.

States including Georgia and Florida began reopening with some restrictions from late April to early May, according to The New York Times.

Other states, including New York, have implemented fines for those who aren’t social distancing in public spaces.

The margin of error for the Gallup poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 11:05 AM with the headline "Fewer Americans are avoiding small gatherings as pandemic wears on, poll finds."